The invention disclosed herein relates to an interactive toy shooting game played by radiating energy, e.g., light, towards a target which detects appropriately directed radiated energy and in response thereto provides an output that a person can feel, e.g., an ejection or release of a material, object, vibration, electrical shock, etc. The output is intended to be received and felt (other than by sight or sound) by a person playing the game. The target may be carried by a player or by a self-propelled or stationary device. The game may also provide audio and/or visual effects associated with the detection of radiation and/or the feelable output. The invention extends the play value of the toy shooting game disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 08/795,895, filed Feb. 5, 1997, the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
Toy shooting games played by shooting some form of light and detecting when the shot light strikes a target typically include a light emitter and a light detector. The light detector may be located with the target and detect light impinging on the target, or the light detector may be provided with the light emitter to detect light reflected from a reflector provided with the target. Many remote control applications, including remote control of consumer electronics devices and toys, use transmitted and detected light. Some of the above toys and remote control applications disclose pulsing, modulating and/or coding the light which may be infrared light. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,220,732, 3,499,650, 3,870,305, 3,995,376, 4,164,081, 4,171,811, 4,266,776, 4,267,606, 4,586,715, 4,629,427, 4,754,133, 4,781,593, 4,802,675, 4,898,391, 4,375,106, 4,426,662, 4,931,028, 5,029,872, 5,375,847, 5,437,463, 5,552,917 and 5,577,962.
Yes! Entertainment Corporation of Pleasanton, Calif. currently sells a line of remote activated "prank" devices which squirt water, burst a water-filled balloon, release insect resembling figures and emit sounds intended to embarrass or annoy. The devices each include a remote transmitter and a remote receiver. The transmitter and receiver do not operate as a shooting game since the receiver may be activated by the remote from anywhere within the proximity range of the device, apparently even through interior walls. Thus, operation is not substantially limited to line-of-sight, and these prank device are not shooting games.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,474,486 discloses a remotely activated water squirting toy vehicle. The toy vehicle is not a shooting game and is activated similar to remotely-controlled toy vehicles.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,903,864 and 5,158,212 disclose toys which include an electric pump for squirting water, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,795,400, 4,890,838, 4,900,020 and 4,991,847 disclose toys which include a water-filled balloon that is burst by gravity or a motor-driven mechanism.
None of the toys and remote control devices described above or in the patents cited above provide an output that a person can feel when a target is struck by directed radiation in a toy shooting game.